


Winter Wonderland

by pocky_slash



Series: Iowa [5]
Category: West Wing
Genre: Established Relationship, Iowa, M/M, Post-Canon, Snow and Ice, Snowball Fight, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-02
Updated: 2008-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-14 18:44:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Will and the first snow of the season.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter Wonderland

The first Iowa snowfall happened when Sam wasn't paying attention.

It wasn't that he wasn't paying attention, really. He was sure he would have noticed, but he spent most of the night before awake, pacing around the living room, rolling his shoulders, trying to get rid of the phantom ache that he couldn't shake. When the snow began to fall, he was falling too, finally closing his eyes and succumbing to sleep, even as Will woke up for the last day of classes. He mumbled a good bye, made a half-hearted remark about being awake before the sun came up, and was asleep before Will could lean over and press a kiss to his forehead.

He slept through most of the day, his subconscious trying to chase away whatever it was that had made sleep so elusive during the night. He only woke when he heard the bell will had hung over the cat door to keep track of Jackson, the same bell that rang every time they opened the door, even though the cat door had been screwed shut since the first frost.

He stretched and opened his eyes, momentarily guilty for sleeping so late, for wasting an entire day. He had needed it, though. He could tell from the way the world felt light, the way his shoulders felt less tense. And god, was he glad, because the sun was just starting to slide down in the sky, peeking in through the bedroom window and catching on the icicles hanging down from the gutters. There was snow as far as the eye could see, and in their little house on the flat expanse of Iowa farmland, the eye could see farther than Sam could have imagined.

"Did you sleep all day?" Will asked. He was suddenly in the doorway, cheeks and nose violently red, snow flakes hanging in his hair and off his scarf and jacket.

"Well, I didn't sleep all night, so I figured I had to make up for it sometime," Sam said. He smiled at Will and then rolled over and folded his arms, staring out the window. The sky was turning lilac and pink, the snow was untouched. It looked different, somehow. Different than it looked in the suburbs he'd grown up in as a child, the cities he ran to as an adult.

He heard Will start to take off his boots, just as he sat up and reached for his pants. Corduroys, and thick socks. T-shirt, henley, sweater.

"Wait," Will said, "are you getting dressed? I'm getting undressed and into bed. There's something wrong here."

"I was in bed all day," Sam reminded him. He was in the closet, digging for his boots. "Time to get up."

"You're crazy," Will said. "It _snowed_. I had to dig my car out from the parking lot. It took me like, twice as long as usual to get home. The heat isn't working again. I've been dreaming about this bed since I left it this morning."

Sam glanced over his shoulder. Will was doing his best to glare him into submission. He should have known that the glare didn't work on Sam anymore.

"Then stay in bed," Sam said. "I'm going outside."

"It's freezing!" Will insisted. Sam pulled his boots out of the closet and sat on the bed to put them on. "It's getting dark! It's wet and... and..." Will petered out with a sigh, and by the time Sam was buttoning his coat in the hall, Will was trailing behind him, trying to put his mittens back on. "You're insane."

"I know," Sam said. He pulled a hat over his ears and then headed out the door. The bell jingled once in his wake, and then again before the door even had a chance to slam.

"Crazy!" Will reiterated, but he was right there, two steps behind Sam, bumping into him abruptly when he stopped walking.

It took Will a minute, but he stopped rocking back and forth impatiently, stepped to stand beside Sam and looked.

In the last rays of sunlight, it really was something else.

"First snow in Iowa," Will said softly. He took Sam's mittened hand in his own. "It's surreal, isn't it?"

"A little," Sam said. "More than that, it's..."

"Good," Will said. He squeezed Sam's hand.

"Yeah," Sam said. "Good."

Will leaned against his shoulder, eyes dreamy, gaze focused on the setting sun, the flawless scenery, just as taken with the picture as Sam had been a few minutes beforehand, lying in bed.

Which just meant he was fully distracted when Sam drew back and lobbed the first snowball.


End file.
